Ayrton (A.J.) Laucks is a Junior Designer at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's (SOM) Chicago Office. He graduated from Syracuse University SoA in 2026 with a B.Arch and Minor in Psychology, conducting research centered around the physical infrastructures behind virtual worlds with a SOURCE Fellowship. A.J. has previously held internships with SOM, Cobe, MATR Lab, and Laucks Architects and served as a Construction Laborer with Kaiser Martin Construction Group. His work has received international recognition from Designing Resilience Globally (DRG), Archisource, Archiol, Non-Architecture, Archidots, and Syracuse SoA, all while incorporating ideas from diverse fields like philosophy, psychology, sociology, physics, mathematics, and literature in all of his projects. In his free time, A.J. enjoys running, cycling, reading, photography, soccer, volleyball, golf, Fortnite, and playing around with A.I.